Diamondbacks Hit Reset Button; Move Dodger Associates In And Out

Whole lotta shakin' goin' on over in Arizona. Most recently, Kirk Gibson and Alan Trammell were let go from the Diamondbacks coaching staff:

PHOENIX -- Just days from the end of an awful season, the Arizona Diamondbacks fired manager Kirk Gibson.

The firing was announced Friday, 15 minutes before a news conference to introduce new Diamondbacks general manager Dave Stewart.

"It was my trigger to pull," chief baseball officer Tony La Russa said.

Bench coach Alan Trammell also was dismissed but will stay on to manage the final three games, a weekend series against St. Louis. The Diamondbacks lost the first game 7-6 in 10 innings Friday night.

"We just decided that being fresh, starting fresh with not just the upstairs leadership team but downstairs, is more consistent with what we are doing as an organization," La Russa said at the news conference.

And you read that right, the new GM of the Diamondbacks is Dave Stewart, the former agent of Dodger CF Matt Kemp:

Matt Kemp needs a new agent after Dave Stewart, his current (or previous) one, was hired as general manager and vice president of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday.

Stewart will be bringing along De Jon Watson, the Dodgers’ vice president of player development, as his senior vice president of baseball operations.

Both will report to Tony La Russa, the team’s new chief baseball officer, completing a major front-office revamping for the last-place Diamondbacks.

According to Forbes magazine, Stewart will over his agent duties to his business colleague, Dave Henderson.

Bummer to lose De Jon Watson from our front office, though.

Dear New Owners: Please...

1. Long-term Clayton Kershaw. Self-explanatory.

2. Figure out Andre Ethier. Can he remain healthy enough to bat next to Matt Kemp? Was that Gold Glove a true indicator of his defensive talent? Can his dickishness be overlooked? If yes to all three, lock him up.

3. Put Ned Colletti on notice. He may have been handcuffed lately, but that doesn't excuse poor signings like Jason Schmidt, Andruw Jones, Juan Pierre, Juan Uribe, etc. Logan White, Kim Ng and/or De Jon Watson are waiting in the wings.

4. Find us a catcher. It's arguable if Russell Martin is the one that got away, but it's less arguable that A.J. Ellis is the long-term solution. Ever since the Carlos Santana debacle (which was preceded by the Mike Piazza debacle), the backstop position has been a source of great inconsistency.

5. Sign some free agents. Cole Hamels and Matt Cain will be free agents after this season, and Joey Votto will be after 2013. Just some names to consider.

6. Beef up Dodger Stadium security, unobtrusively and consistently. When Frank McCourt did it, it seemed reactionary. When you do it, it'll seem responsible.

7. Restore international scouting and player development. The Dodgers were once forerunners in this field, and it's time for them to return there.

8. Make Magic the public face of the franchise. We love Magic, have you noticed?

9. Get players out in the community. To be fair, the Dodgers did a good job of this under the McCourt regime, but it's more important for guys like Kemp and Kershaw to show their faces around town than, say, forcing new signees to make donations to ThinkCure.

10. No nepotism, no Vladimir Shpunt, no "perquisites." Thank goodness you dudes are already loaded, because the McCourts' nouveau riche act wore thin really fast.

11. Lower beer and parking prices. Show Arte Moreno who owns L.A.!

Torre Renders Minority Candidates Moot

From "Selig Allows Dodgers to Bypass Hiring Rules" by Murray Chass at the New York Times:

The legacy of Jackie Robinson lives on.

The Dodgers, who when they played in Brooklyn broke baseball’s color barrier a half-century ago, have such a good minority employment record that Commissioner Bud Selig exempted them from following his directive on interviewing minority candidates for decision-making positions.

Once Joe Girardi became the Yankees’ manager, the Dodgers wanted to hire Joe Torre for what they expected would be their managerial vacancy and they didn’t want to delay doing it. They called Selig and asked to be allowed to skip the mandatory interviews of minority candidates....

Before he acted on the request from the owner, Frank McCourt, Selig studied the Dodgers’ hiring history. What he found surprised even him. The Dodgers had perhaps the best diversity record in the major leagues. Thirty-eight percent of their staff consisted of blacks, women, Latinos or Asians....

The highest-ranking minority, Kim Ng, is an Asian woman. She is a vice president and assistant general manager, the same titles she previously held with the Yankees. Ng was the first woman who was interviewed for a major league general manager’s job when the Dodgers interviewed her two years ago.

A month ago, the Dodgers promoted De Jon Watson to assistant general manager, about a year after he joined the club as director for player development. Watson, 40, is highly regarded in baseball and is seen as a certain general manager of the future....

Two other blacks — Toney Howell and Vance Lovelace — are special assistants to Colletti, who estimated that half of the organization’s player development staff, managers and coaches are minorities.